Before Saturday night's game, Mark Jackson composed a sonnet to the San Antonio Spurs, who happened to be the night's opponent. And last May's playoff opponent. And perhaps this May's playoff opponent.

You know the Spurs? The team that regularly humbles the Warriors?

They did it again on Saturday, for the 51st time in 59 games. But at least the Spurs are nice enough to dole out little pencil marks on the wall while administering a thumping.

The Spurs are the Warriors' benchmark. How far have the Warriors come? How far do they still have to go?

"When you play against them you think, 'Wow, these guys are legit,' " Jackson said. "They know how to win, how to compete, how to play unselfishly.

"It's like you take five high school All-Americans, and you drop them off at the YMCA. The old dudes are going to cook them."

That's what happened Saturday. The old dudes - well, Tony Parker in particular - cooked the Warriors in the first quarter, opening up a 15-point lead. And though the Warriors battled back and took a brief lead early in the second half, the Spurs - rallying behind their young players in the fourth quarter - won easily 99-90.

Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili had the night off, both having played extended minutes the night before in Sacramento. Gregg Popovich doesn't care if he irritates the Bay Area chapter of the Duncan & Ginobili Fan Club: in two visits to Oakland this season, his stars didn't play a minute. He doesn't care that, by regularly resting his best players, he could risk the top seed in the West and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.

"I won't overplay guys or do anything to try to keep that position," Popovich said. "As evidenced by tonight."

Popovich does what's best for his team and doesn't worry about anyone else. While Jackson was penning his love letter to San Antonio on one side of the arena, Popovich shrugged off any questions about the Warriors or other teams.

Whatever Popovich does works out pretty well. The Spurs have the best record in the NBA. They came into Oracle with the longest active win streak in the NBA at 12 and left with their lucky 13th in a row.

"We fall in love with other teams during the course of the year, yet here we go again, with them sitting on top of the charts," Jackson said.

"If we're committed as a team, tied together to defend at a high level, share the basketball, could care less who gets the recognition, then we can accomplish it," Jackson said. The Spurs "make it more believable."

That's probably not going to make it onto a Warriors-issued T-shirt: "We Believe (because the San Antonio Spurs prove that we should)."

But the Warriors' maturity and improvement this year very much has to do with the lessons they learned a year ago. Particularly the part when - despite a stretch of regular-season futility against San Antonio that has lasted forever and a half - they pushed the Spurs to six games in the playoffs.

The experience made the Warriors this season's trendy darling and vaulted Stephen Curry into stardom, and the young players internalized the lessons learned. Add the experience of Andre Iguodala (who sat out Saturday's game), experienced backups Steve Blake and Jermaine O'Neal, and a healthier Andrew Bogut to the mix, and the Warriors are a better team than they were a year ago.

A team more prepared to do damage in the playoffs.

"The experience," Jackson said, when asked how his team has improved. "Tasting success. Tasting the second round. Tasting adversity during the course of the year and fighting through it.

"All of those things have played a role in making us a better team, and I do not minimize the impact of facing the Spurs in the playoffs."

The Warriors have 11 games remaining in the regular season. But in a strange scheduling quirk, they will have the next five days off, a huge gap before hosting Memphis on March 28. The break will allow some banged-up players to get healthy before the playoffs, but it's the equivalent of coming to a screeching stop on a freeway on-ramp. It could disrupt the good rhythm that the Warriors have found since the All-Star break, going 13-5.

The Warriors slid into their days off with their customary struggle against San Antonio. They missed an opportunity to close to within half a game of fifth-place Portland. Right now, the Warriors would face the Clippers in the first round. If they survive, they could meet the Spurs again.

Here's the silver lining:

"If you want to be a very good team," Jackson said, "the way to speed up the process is to play against the Spurs, as many times as possible."